Critical Mass, Los Angeles

Critical Mass in LA is an incredible experience. Even if you’re not a bike fanatic like me you’d still enjoy it. There’s nothing like riding in a huge parade of people having fun. Men and women everywhere riding tricked out custom bikes, horns blaring and bike bells fill the air, speakers pulled by dolly’s bumping awesome beats, the fun doesn’t end. Here are some photos I took while biking (literally), I risked my life so I hope you like them!

I’m trying something new, so here’s a gallery of images form the rest of the ride.

The first thing you realize when coming to Western and Wilshire, where the ride begins, is that there are hordes of people riding to this point. It’s quite an exciting thing to see, knowing that people from all over LA are coming here as if it were a Holy Land pilgrimage.

Every ride is unique, and most times, riders receive spoke cards. Small trophies that show what crew you ride with and what rides you’ve been on. This is this month’s spoke card, I really like these and usually the art work is really nice. The cards are laminated with thick plastic and meant to be stuffed into the tires spokes.

The ride meets on the last friday of every month at Wilshire and Western just off the Red Line.

As you can see in the picture below, this man has plenty of spoke cards. The “day of the dead” spoke card with the skulls represents the “Taco Tuesday” ride. This is probably one of my favorite cards, I’ll have to go on the ride this next Tuesday to see if I can score one.

The police usually show up, however this time they were a bit extreme. To accompany us for our own “protection” they had corked off every major street and were coralling us with about 20-30 cops on motorcycles. Not only was it dumb to have officers on street bikes to contain us, but it was dangerous. Why not have officers on bicycles accompany us and ride within the ride?

Here you get a small look at how big the ride is. I was approximately in the middle of the ride, this is looking forward.

For some, the bike ride is all about style. Showing off their fancy bikes and funny accessories.

Critical Mass is a fun bike ride but in reality it is a protest of bikers. The idea is to cause traffic, block up the road, to let drivers know that cyclists are here, and to let the city know that bikers expect consideration in city planning.

Go on one of these rides, and most likely you’ll fall in love with the bike community.

Riders like to show off, especially in front of the camera.

The ride path is always different, today the ride ended in Venice Beach. The hangout stretched two shopping center parking lots and the street that between the two. Cars couldn’t get in or out and the police were constantly yelling at everyone, but they eventually gave up and left.